Tag Archive for: local search

Search engines have been attempting to get local search right since the invention of the internet, but they have only managed to make local search a major player as smartphones have allowed us to take the internet everywhere we go. Now that we can search for locations nearby, or double-check the time of the next bus from a bench outside, local SEO has gained real importance in how we organize use the web.

That also means it is more important than ever for businesses to make the leap into establishing an online presence. With the high level of connectivity in the modern day, not having an online presence for your business is becoming more and more like not existing. Searchers may be standing right in front of your business and decide not to come in simply because they can’t find anything about you online.

To really get your business cemented online, you need to do more than put a site online and wait for visitors. But, many places will barrage you with a million optimization techniques you can use to raise your visibility all at once, so it can be hard to know exactly where to start. Sarvesh Bagla made a checklist specifically so you know what you need to have done right now to expect your local business to have any online success.

Each step is laid out and explained in Bagla’s article on Tech Magnate, but they also created a nice graphic that you can keep close by, which can be seen below or printed off and hung by your computer to keep you on track.

handy-local-seo-checklist-2014

On January 15th, Facebook announced they will be starting their own personal search engine called Facebook Graph Search. That’s right, the little white bar at the top of your page now has an actual purpose. The search engine relies strongly on “likes” and other relevant Facebook information such as page popularity and location signals.

While this new change could lead to some interesting methods of finding businesses close to you (for example, Facebook claims you will be able to search things like “Italian restaurants that my friends have been to”), but it also has business owners and SEO experts wondering how to take advantage of Facebook’s search. As Matt McGee found out however, Facebook was already ahead of everyone.

They released tips for how to make sure your business gets found in the Graph Search. Releasing these tips helps them as much as it helps others use the search, because it will help business position themselves to appear in the search while simultaneously populating the search engine for Facebook.

The most important things to know are that Graph Search is only available for a few right now, but it will offer local search from the very start, and the search results are created by compiling information created and shared by businesses, especially through their pages.

That doesn’t mean you have to have a page for your business however. It will help enormously, but businesses also will show up so long as customers or visitors have tagged them as a “place”.

We will have to wait to see just how Facebook’s Graph Search works once it is unveiled for the wider public. It could become another gimmick type feature of Facebook that many don’t use, like the FourSquare like ability to check into locations is treated at the moment. But, it is possible Facebook’s new search engine could be a useful tool for finding local businesses.